its potential importance to the field of family history is significantlyreduced.Rzce Unzverszty BRENDA STEVENSONCrafting a Southwestern Masterpiece: . Evetts Haley and "Charles Goodnight:Cowman and Plainsman." By B. Byron Price. (Midland, Tex.: NitaStewart Haley Memorial Library [81o5 W. Indiana, Midland, Tex.79701], 1986. Pp. 68. Acknowledgments, illustrations, notes, in-dex. $20.)This is a book about a book and the men who produced it. The au-thor analyzes how the friendship of an eminent cowman-plainsman(ninety-one-year-old Charles Goodnight) with a young Texas cowman-historian (twenty-six-year-old J. Evetts Haley) and a talented Texas il-lustrator (Harold D. Bugbee) resulted in "the greatest biography of acowman ever written."Everything about the project was vast in scope and time consuming.Even the life of Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) was lengthy andeventful. Among his accomplishments he blazed the Goodnight-Lovingand Goodnight trails, which provided a route from Fort Beknap,Texas, northward through New Mexico to Colorado and eventually toCheyenne, Wyoming. This route became the most important coursefor cattle driven westward from Texas, "a trail burned deep into thememories of men by bloody Indian warfare, drouthy drives and dyingcattle, dry water holes and alkali dust, tragic death and bitter disap-pointment," according to Haley. Goodnight survived to ninety-threewith his memory amazingly accurate.Only because the aging cowman communicated completely with theyoung historian was it possible for the tales to be preserved. The mencan be compared to James Boswell and Samuel Johnson in their em-pathy. Both were sired in an Emersonian belief that self-reliance wasrequired of Texans; each prided himself on being a cattleman first.A decade (1925-1936) was devoted to research and to writing themanuscript.The third ingredient required was an illustrator. Difficult decisionswere confronted; originally, photographs were considered necessary.Fortunately a young Texas artist, Harold D. Bugbee, accepted the task ofworking with the two volatile personalities. The collaboration of the threemen resulted in Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plaznsman, published byHoughton-Mifflin in 1936 and favorably reviewed by the critics.B. Byron Price relates how the chemistry between these typical Tex-ans resulted in a biography that has become a classic, one that today is